Friday, November 4, 2011

TWD: Mini Madeleines plus some Catch Up

Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook chose Mini Madeleines for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. (Valerie of Une Gamine dans la Cuisine also chose Fall Butternut Squash Pie, but it seems my childhood experiences of being made to "clean my plate" have scarred me for life when it comes to squash. Needless to say, I didn't make the pie.)

Madeleines are a cake-like cookie, baked in a special pan. They are famous for sticking to the pan and for being prized for the little hump formed on the tops if you "do it right". Sadly, mine were hump-less, but happily they didn't stick to the pan.

I'm also going to share some recipes I've made but haven't blogged about over the past few months.

Last week, Nicole of Cookies on Friday chose Far Breton. A French dessert, it's 80% custard, 20% cake. I used dried cranberries and cherries rather than the prunes and raisins called for in the recipe. I thought it looked like bacon-covered quiche.

These spicy little guys had both ground ginger and fresh ginger for a double whammy of ginger. As usual, when mixing spices with chocolate, I couldn't decide if I liked them or not. But they were interesting and something different.

This was an unusual crumble made with bananas and mango. I wasn't really sure I would like it, but with the first bite... true love!! It was kind of weird, but the taste reminded me a lot of banana baby food. I remember when my kids were babies, when banana baby food was on the menu it would be - a bite for you, a bite for me, a bite for you, a bite for me... (gee, that sounds terrible, doesn't it?) I love that stuff!

I made 1/2 recipe and it fit in two mini pie pans.

Too bad I didn't have this recipe before. My poor kids would have been better fed!

For me, this was just OK. One by-product of baking EVERY single recipe in a baking book is that you find out what you like and what you don't. I've found out that I'm not a huge fan of muffins, biscuits, or quickbreads. I mean, they're OK and I'm not likely to turn down banana bread, but you won't find me chosing them over cookies and pie.

Whew! That's about it. If you'd like to see the recipes, check out Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking, from my Home to Yours", or click on the links (i.e. click on the names of the desserts) above.

What a great roundup of recipes! I adore your sunny madeleine photo - makes me wish I could spend the day outside with a long cool drink - and some madeleines. LOL - I hadn't thought of the crumble as being like banana baby food, but yeah, I can see why it would.